Miami & The Beaches Photo Blog

Ever since Lars Ulrich took up residence as the figurehead
of the fight against Napster back in 2000, there has been a battle waging
between musicians and fans that download their music for free.

Now the battlefield looks like this; the governments on one
side, and the Featured Artists Coalition (FAC) on the other. The war’s latest
casualty is British pop ‘star’ Lily Allen, who has (not for the first time)
threatened to quit the music industry as a result of illegal downloading of her
music. After joining forces with British government minister Lord Mandelson,
who is spear-heading the government campaign to tackle the illegal downloading
problem, Allen has faced mixed reactions of abuse and support for her
decisions. Her blog, which over the years has been considered honest and
somewhat self deprecating, has recently been taken down as a result of all the
attention.

Allen’s intention to leave the music scene evokes a mix of emotions.
My initial reaction was to consider the news irrelevant. While Lily has had some
success with popular, entertaining, and often quite blunt songs, she is hardly
today’s Janis Joplin. However, I followed Lily’s career with half-hearted
interest. Here it seemed, was a girl who liked to sing, who appeared cheeky,
irreverent, and was a true product of the blog era (her career success is
purported to be based around her original MySpace popularity). Was this then a
musician who performed for the sake of the music? Apparently not…

It’s easy to judge, to throw stones at musicians who gripe
over not receiving royalties from song downloads. We all want to believe that
musicians and artists create music for the same reason that Jimmy Hendrix, Led
Zeppelin, and Jim Morison did back in their day – for the love of the music,
and to share the experiences with their fans. Sadly, to believe this is to live
in a delusional world. And why should musicians be painted with such a
tarnished brush? Do journalists not write for the love of writing; to inform,
entertain and god forbid, inspire the world? Should we do it for free?

Whether Lily Allen quits the music industry, or stays on to
produce a third album, the decision will have little impact on our lives. Her
music has not been so influential that she will be sorely missed, and she, like
many bands of this generation, will fade into anonymity within a few years.
What is a shame though, is that Allen, who seemed like she could be a small
beacon of light in an otherwise manufactured, rather narrow-styled industry,
turns out to be less than we hoped for, but exactly what we should have
expected.